Chapter 44

After another ugly breakup, Victoria was suddenly on our doorstep, then crashing on the couch—or in my bed—for several months as she figured out what she wanted to do next.

Victoria had always been, well, a little flighty. She bounced from job to job the same way she did from one relationship to the next. It was something I’d always kind of admired about her: her willingness to take chances, then quickly course correct if something didn’t go how she hoped. Meanwhile, I was always afraid of change, of making the wrong decision, of trusting the wrong people. So I just… didn’t take those chances; I didn’t trust… anyone.

“What’d you fight over?” Rune asked.

“Puerto Rico, actually.”

“Why?”

“She’d been planning to go. We both have family there. She was trying to convince me to go with her, spend the summer, have some fun, flings, make memories.”

“You didn’t want to?”

“I just… couldn’t. My job was what was giving Sof and me enough stability. She was starting to figure it out by then, but if I left, she likely would have gotten some soul-sucking job to make ends meet, and acting would have fallen to the side.”

“And she saw it as you choosing Sofia over her.”

“Yeah. Sof and Vicky were oil and water. They both, you know, tried to get along around me for my sake. But things were always tense, especially if one of them thought I was choosing the other over them.”

“Sounds complicated.”

“You never had anything like that with your brother?”

Rune gave me a devilish little smirk. “Can’t say either of us have ever been serious enough about a woman that she came between us. And Croft and I, we’re twins. So I think the bond is just a little different.”

“But you haven’t had friends come between you?”

“We grew up kinda different. In the club.”

“The biker club?”

“Yeah, our father was a member. And the club is like a family, so all his club brothers became our uncles. All their kids became our cousins and best friends. Not many of us made friends outside of the club. Not serious ones, anyway.”

“Because you couldn’t, you know, talk about club stuff with outsiders?”

“I think that part was always known, but never stated. It wasn’t like our parents told us not to make friends. But we always knew there was a lot we couldn’t tell strangers about our lives.”

“It makes sense. But you didn’t fight? With your cousins?”

“Oh, we fought like fucking cats and dogs. Especially the guys. But it was never serious. No fallouts.”

“Why were you in Puerto Rico then?”

“Originally, to visit family. I think Croft and I both felt a little… pinched still living at home but being adults. We saw hopping over to another country as a way to branch out on our own and be seen as men. But then we got there… and we got wrapped up in some shit.”

“The kind of shit that ends with people getting shot?”

“In a roundabout way, yes. At first, we were just in the car when a distant cousin—second or third or something—did a drop.”

“A drop,” I repeated.

“Of something illegal. Still don’t know what it was. Anyway, shit went a little sideways. My brother and I needed to step in so our cousin didn’t get killed. Things spiraled from there.”

“Who was it?” I asked.

“The guy who shot your friend?”

“Yeah.”